The market for sand filters, belt presses, bag filters, and other macrofiltration equipment used to separate particles from water and liquids will exceed $6.6 billion in 2013, according to McIlvaine Company’s latest “Liquid Filtration and Media World Market” online report.

The report finds the largest purchasing segment will be municipal water treatment plants. In this sector, granular media filters are routinely utilized prior to chemical treatment and alum sludges are dewatered using belt filter presses or recessed chamber filter presses. The mining industry uses drum filters for product separation while the brewing and pharmaceutical industries use leaf filters for product purification. The power industry uses gravity media belt filters to separate gypsum from recycled scrubber liquor while the chemical industry uses bag filters and filter presses for product separation.

McIlvaine says one of the biggest new markets is ballast water treatment, noting that a 50-micron filter will be required on most of the 70,000 ships that will be subject to new international maritime rules. Another growing market will be in treating the fracturing flow-back water associated with shale gas extraction.

East Asia will be the largest regional market, McIlvaine says. Belt filter presses will be purchased to dewater sludge at many sewage treatment plants. The pulp and paper industry in the region will also be a major purchaser of macrofiltration equipment.

There are many suppliers of granular media filters and belt filter presses. On the other hand, there are only a handful of suppliers for the big vacuum belt filters used in the power industry. The amount of equipment now produced in Asia is larger than in any other region. McIlvaine says this is, in part, due to the activity of Asian suppliers, but also to the decision to locate regional manufacturing in Asia by international suppliers such as Andritz.

For more information on “Liquid Filtration and Media World Market,” click here.